


Dream a Little Dream

by Kanuvina



Category: The Secret World
Genre: Gen, Templars, a'kab, supernatural horror, wabanaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 17:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanuvina/pseuds/Kanuvina
Summary: Maab is sent to help the Wabanaki.





	Dream a Little Dream

Maab sat on the red velvet-cushioned bench outside Sonnac’s office, shuffling her feet absently as she waited. The grand chamber of Temple Hall bustled with men and women clad from head to toe in red and white. They were all Templars, doing what needed to be done for their lauded organization.

For the Greater Good.

That’s why Maab was here. She was one of those Templars, in her red trench coat and white turtleneck sweater, silver cross dangling on a long chain around her neck. She was called here by Richard Sonnac, her primary liaison for missions that took her into the darker depths of the Secret World.

Sonnac summoned her from inside his office, his baritone and light Kenyan accent distinguishable from the chatter around her. Maab stood up quickly and entered the doorless room.

“Maab, I am glad to see you are doing well,” Sonnac greeted flatly from his desk. He did not look up from the letter he was writing, the pen scratching across the paper in quick strokes.

Maab loved visiting Sonnac’s office for all its pomp and grandeur. It was like a slice cut out of the Uffizi, or the Louvre. Large murals and Renaissance paintings of angels and saints marching to war covered all four walls of the chamber. The carpet laid over the white marble was a lush crimson, and the furniture couldn’t have been younger than two hundred years old. A bengal cat lounged on a sofa behind Sonnac’s desk, watching Maab intently as she stood on the other side.

“The last time we spoke, you were dealing with the Innsmouth Academy. Things are back to some semblance of working order there, I take it?” Sonnac glanced up, then back down at his work.

Maab nodded.

“Excellent. That place it fraught with dangerous magic. We could not rely on the Illuminati to clean up their own mess,” Sonnac explained, still writing. Occasionally, as his hand moved, Sonnac’s silver signet ring would catch the dim light, the Templar cross illuminated in an almost magical way.

Maab nodded again.

“I am sending you to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Have you ever been?”

Maab shook her head.

“Beautiful place. Well, perhaps not this particular area. I am putting you in touch with the Wabanaki tribe there. They are dealing with some rather ugly vermin… the A’kab. There is a rather nasty infestation that needs dealt with. They are not native to the area, to say the least, and the Wabanaki need help exterminating them. I will message you the coordinates of a contact. Head there and await further instructions.”

\---

It was storming when Maab stepped foot out of the Agartha portal and into a shallow riverbed somewhere in Blue Mountain. She had dressed for the misty New England weather, but even a trench coat and boots were no match for the torrential downpour.

She waded through the muddy ravine until she found a wooden bridge to duck under. With no rain beating down on her head, Maab took out her phone and pulled up a map of the area. She was not too far from where she would meet her contact - a place called Red’s Bait & Tackle. She would be speaking to Ami, not Red himself, about the A’Kab infestation. Apparently, Ami had found an effective way of dealing with the malevolent creatures.

Maab made her way to the road, then followed that south until the building came into view. Never one to dive head-first into a situation, she took in what she could of her surroundings through the rain and fog. It was an endeavor to see more than a few feet ahead, but occasionally lightning would pierce through the dark sky above, and Maab would get a better glimpse of the terrain. The shop was nothing more than a large shack on the eastern side of the road, with a short dock on the opposite side on Tolba Bay. Maab supposed that, before the sinister fog and its undead denizens wreaked havoc on the area, Red’s probably saw a lot more tourist traffic.

Looking out at the water, Maab could see dark figures lurking in the shallows, lumbering figures that certainly belonged to the draug. That was a problem for another day, however. Right now, her target was the ever-growing nests of A’kab in the nearby hills.

Maab stepped into the shop and wiped the water from her face. There was a fireplace and a few chairs to her right, and a desk with a cash register to her left. The walls were laden with shelves full of what one would expect in a rural bait and tackle shop, as well as various sundries and souvenirs. A man stood by the fireplace, staring intensely into the flames. Maab assumed he was Red, based on the description given to her by Sonnac. At the register was a middle-aged woman with long dark hair and dark eyes - Ami. Maab walked up to her.

Ami eyed her up and down, sizing her up. “Hmm, you must be another one of those Secret Worlders, right? Lots of you folk coming through here lately… don’t buy much, though.” She fiddled with the register, opening the drawer and closing it a couple times. “I suppose you’re here for the dreamcatchers?”

Maab cocked her head to the side, curious. _Was_ she here for that? She didn’t know.

Ami looked at her impatiently. “They’re the only things that keep the A’kab at bay. You know, those ugly fly-beast things? You’re looking at me like I’m crazy, so I’m gonna guess you haven’t run into one yet. That’s a surprise - they’re everywhere like, well, flies.”

Maab furrowed her brow. She’d gotten used to getting around without speaking since her “awakening,” but it could still be a challenge sometimes. Nevertheless, she often found that her silence spurred others to talk more, and they would eventually get around to what needed to be said.

Ami closed the drawer to the register for the third time since they began their one-sided conversation and crouched down behind the desk. Maab stood patiently as she heard Ami rifle around for something. When she finally popped back up, her hands were full of various items. She laid them out on the desk: some pipe cleaners, hemp string, an assortment of colorful beads, and eagle feathers.

“I know it doesn’t look like much, but I swear it works. We have them hanging around the outside of the shop, and those nasty bastards don’t come anywhere near it. So, I made some more for the trailer park, hung those out too, and same thing. No A’Kab.”

Maab looked at Ami incredulously. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe her - she’d seen some crazy things the last few months - it was just that it seemed too easy. Then again, this was a defense measure. The A’kab were still out there, still breeding at a rapid rate. The dreamcatchers might keep them away, but it would only push them farther into new territory.

Ami seemed to pick up on Maab’s concern. “Yea, it’s a bandaid. I need to look out for my tribe, though. You understand. You Secret Worlders, you’re the ones who go out and actually destroy them, right?”

Maab nodded.

“Right, so I’ll show you how to put together the dreamcatcher… it’s not just a mess of string on a circle with some beads and feathers, you know. There’s a pattern.”

Maad quirked an eyebrow dubiously and pointed at her face.

Ami smirked. “Yea, I know. You’re white. I noticed. Look, this has a lot less to do with that and more to do with… abilities. I’m the only one in my tribe who can make these, that we know of. Others tried and it was a disaster. So I figure it’s magic. Or anima. Whatever you guys call it. You should be fine.”

Maab felt some relief. She picked up a pipe cleaner and made a loop with it.

“Good start,” Ami said with a nod. “Now pay close attention, we don’t have a lot of time.”

\---

Lightning crashed, illuminating the thicket of trees atop the hill. Even from afar, Maab could see the A’kab nests at the base of the evergreens. They looked like wasps’ nests - paper mache, brown, and mottled. She heard their chittering and the fluttering of their wings well before she saw any of them. The sounds unnerved her, and Maab had faced bloated zombies impregnated with horrors from the depths of the sea.  The forest sounded alive, but not in a beautiful poetic way. It felt alive like the decomposing corpse of a small animal filled with maggots, writhing and consuming.

Maab crept around the trees, trying her best to avoid the heart of the nest where the bulk of the swarm would be. From what Ami and The Buzzing had told her, there should have been some A’kab guarding the outer perimeter of the nest. Maab hadn’t run into any, but she was prepared. Dreamcatcher in one hand, her anima-imbued sword in the other and a couple pistols at her sides for good measure, Maab was not about to be ambushed by some oversized bug-things.

As threatening as the nest was, and as necessary as it would be to give it a good napalm spritz, Maab knew that was not her mission in that moment. This was recon with a side of deterrence. On the other side of that nest was a tunnel through the mountain, and on the other side of that tunnel was the Wabanaki reservation. Maab needed to get to that tunnel and place the dreamcatcher inside. That would seal off a main route for the A’kab and further protect the Wabanaki.

It was not too far off, only several yards away, when Maab heard what sounded like a thousand locusts stirring behind her. She turned just in time to come face to face with it. It stood on four limbs, the fore longer than the hind, it’s skin gray and loose over its bulbous, cicada-like body. It had too many eyes, all in the wrong placed on what Maab assumed was its head, black and shining. They had no irises, but Maab could sense it was staring directly at her with a predatory intelligence that made her shiver. Blood-red, tonguelike appendages darted out from several slits in its head and from a round opening where a muzzle would be - its mouth, perhaps? Three bony, jointed protrusions stuck out from its back, connecting flimsy shreds of skin in a mockery of wings.

Nothing about this creature felt natural, of this world.

Maab knew she had a split second before this abomination would attack her. From what the bees had told her, the A’kab were single-minded in their purpose: devour, spread, devour more. The A’kab’s tongues slithered and darted, and the rustling noise became louder. Deafening. Almost distracting. Maab fumbled for her sword, but she wasn’t fast enough. The creature lunged, trampling her and knocking the air out of her. Dazed and prone, Maab could sense the creature positioning to lunge on top of her. She tried to sit up, or roll away, but her body felt too heavy. The A’kab hadn’t just knocked her down; it utilized some sort of paralysis agent.

It chittered gleefully as it watched Maab attempt to get on her feet. She could still feel her limbs and her digits, and that’s when she remembered the dreamcatcher tethered to her wrist and tucked into her coat sleeve. Yanking on the rawhide strap, she pulled it out and thrust it into the A’kab’s face just as it leapt atop of her. It reeked of rotten meat and ammonia, making Maab gag, but she held the dreamcatcher steadfastly.

The shriek that emanated from the A’kab pierced Maab’s ears and thrummed in her head. It fell onto its back, writhing and howling in pain, but still very much alive. If she allowed it to continue, it would alert the rest of its hive. Gripping her sword tightly, Maab drove the blade into what she assumed was the creature’s throat, and twisted. Shrieks turned to gurgles as black blood oozed from the wound and out of its mouth-slits. Within seconds, it stopped thrashing and lay still.

Satisfied that the A’kab was dead, Maab pulled her sword out and flicked the blood off the blade. Immediately, she felt the weight pressing down on her lift, and she jumped back to her feet. The A’kab had not alerted the others, but it was only a matter of time before another became aware of her presence. She needed to make haste.

With the tunnel in sight, Maab threw caution to the wind and bolted for it.

\---

The rain finally let up by the time Maab returned to the shop, soaked through and covered in mud. Luckily, the fire was roaring in the fireplace. She edged near it and took out her phone. A quick message to Sonnac to let him know the mission was a success and she could return to London.

A few minutes after hitting send, her mobile dinged and vibrated. Maab checked, and it was a message back from Sonnac.

“Good work, Templar. It seems we are always running around, cleaning up the Illuminati’s messes lately. Solomon Island is certainly rife with them. One wonders, had they intervened in any significant way, this entire fiasco could have been averted.

It is no matter. What’s done is done. You have done your part to right a wrong. Return to London for further instruction.

 - Sonnac”

Maab closed the screen and pocketed her phone. She was still sopping wet, but much warmer. Eyes closed and arms spread, she felt the anima swirl around her and whisk her away.


End file.
